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What app is equivalent to Word Perfect and Excel

T

tpcollins

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 17, 2012
171
19
I miss the old Microsoft Word and the Excel programs. What is the equivalent to these in the app store? The Text/Edit in the Launpad is ok but a bit difficult for my wife to use.

I saw this Word Perfect Document app down to $2 but I think it's basically a transfer of an already Word document so it can be opened on a Mac. Thanks.
 
Pages and Numbers. Though exporting so the real Office ends up with the exact document you intend is a different story, they never quite are.

Though if you know 4 other users whether on Mac and Windows I am a firm believer that the Office 365 home subscription for 5 of those systems plus iPad is great value. Amazon is the best price to start off the years subscription with a discount.

But it's a bit more than a couple of bucks but you do pay for what you get. The real thing!
 
The applications most equivalent to MS Word and MS Excel in OS X would, funnily enough, be MS Word and MS Excel. You can still buy the boxed versions of Office for Mac (various editions available) on places like Amazon, or I am pretty sure if you do the 365 subscription, then you can download it from the Microsoft site and use your license. However, there are plenty of rumours that Office 2015 for Mac will be coming out soon(ish). I believe that you can use your office 365 license for the new version, but if you buy the boxed version now, then you're stuck.

My issue with the OS X versions though is that they are just not very good when compared to the Windows versions, so I prefer to Bootcamp and use Office from Windows.

It does all depend on what your uses are. Pages is a nice and simple replacement for Word, but if you're trying to work on complex Word documents with Pages, then it's just a no-go area.

Numbers is just not great, in my opinion. Trying to use it to work with complicated Excel documents is not something I would recommend and it lacks far too many features that Excel offers. Again though, it really depends on what you use Excel for. If it's just simply home use, then Numbers should be fine.

Whether you're prepared to switch from the Word and Excel way of doing things and use Pages/Numbers instead is another question though that you need to answer. Pages and Numbers come free with new macs these days, so you can give them a try.
 
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tpcollins said:
I miss the old Microsoft Word and the Excel programs. What is the equivalent to these in the app store? The Text/Edit in the Launpad is ok but a bit difficult for my wife to use.

I saw this Word Perfect Document app down to $2 but I think it's basically a transfer of an already Word document so it can be opened on a Mac. Thanks.
Click to expand...

You are right, WordPerfect Document is not what you are looking for.
If you want something within the world of Microsoft Word and Excel, the best choice is to get the Microsoft Office for Mac. It is far the best word processor for Mac. I have tried many, including Pages what is more of a joke and not a word processor.
You may try OpenOffice or LibreOffice as well. Both look like Microsoft Word old style and are free:

1. http://www.openoffice.org/porting/mac/
2. http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/?type=mac-x86&version=4.3&lang=en-US

P.S.: I would gladly use on any platform the old good WordPerfect 5.1 (DOS, not Windows version that was a tragedy) word processor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect). It was the official word processor of the United Nations in early, mid 1990s for a good reason.
 
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As has been mentioned, the OpenOffice suite has apps such as Writer and Calc and it is free. You can also easily try it or remove it without issue.
 
Apart from them being noticeably inferior to both office and iWork I have a big problem with these open office alternatives because they are coded in Java which is the biggest backdoor entry for malware to infect windows and OS X systems. Unless a client explicitly needs Java I remove it off every clients system I work on.
 
Gav Mack said:
Apart from them being noticeably inferior to both office and iWork I have a big problem with these open office alternatives because they are coded in Java which is the biggest backdoor entry for malware to infect windows and OS X systems. Unless a client explicitly needs Java I remove it off every clients system I work on.
Click to expand...

So the whole thing is in Java? I didn't realize that. As a rule I donb't like Java much, but for Java this is a well done app. security concerns aside.
 
crjackson2134 said:
So the whole thing is in Java? I didn't realize that. As a rule I donb't like Java much, but for Java this is a well done app. security concerns aside.
Click to expand...

I looks at it mostly from a security angle first and foremost. Seen loads of Windows systems and even a few Mac infected by out of date JRE. The number one security risk on Windows boxes for the past 4-5 years easily. It is very achievable once you have discovered a Java exploit on one platform to code it to exploit another. Java's strength in portability across platforms we all raved about at the start is now its Achilles heel sadly.

But even so even despite the deficiencies in the 2011 version if you want word, excel type apps there is nothing as good as the real thing :D

And with the subscription you will get office 2015 for Mac when it's released next year as part of it.
 
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Gav Mack said:
I looks at it mostly from a security angle first and foremost. Seen loads of Windows systems and even a few Mac infected by out of date JRE. The number one security risk on Windows boxes for the past 4-5 years easily. It is very achievable once you have discovered a Java exploit on one platform to code it to exploit another. Java's strength in portability across platforms we all raved about at the start is now its Achilles heel sadly.

But even so even despite the deficiencies in the 2011 version if you want word, excel type apps there is nothing as good as the real thing :D

And with the subscription you will get office 2015 for Mac when it's released next year as part of it.
Click to expand...

Oh, I've already got Office 2011 for Mac. I don't use OpenOffice/LibreOffice, but I've used it for many years on Linux. It worked well in both school & work environments for years. I was forced to use windows on my work desktops, so I always brought a Linux laptop to work for most of my document needs. I should've just bought a MacBook. I'd like to have one, but being retired now, my iPad / MacPro leave me with no reason to buy one.
 
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